Promises Made
by Rainstorm Amaya Arianrhod
Summary: Dove made all those promises, and she can't say she regrets them, but the one she couldn't keep haunts her dreams.


A/N: My Midwinter Exchange fic from the Dove. **_Please read and review!_**

Dedication: To Anya, whom I wrote this for.

Disclaimer: Pierce, not me. This stuff belongs to _Tamora Pierce_.

**spreadyourwingsandlearnhowtoflyspreadyourwingsandlearnhowtoflyspreadyourwingsandlearnhowtofly**

Dove was thirteen when she took the throne, and she promised Aly and Nawat, Fesgao and Chenaol, Taybur and Quedanga, Winna, Petranne, Nuritin, Nomru, and, in absentia, her beloved brother Elsren, that she would not trip up too many times.

She promised Kyprioth that she would care for his country as her own children. In the deepest recesses of her mind, she promised Alanna and George that, no matter what, she would never keep them from their daughter. She promised Ulasim and Ochobu that never, never would their memory fade, among luarin, raka or part-raka regardless. She promised Sarai and Sarai's children that they would always have a place in the Copper Isles.

She promised the luarin that raka would never attack them unprovoked while she had breath in her body. Likewise, she promised the raka that never again would luarin be able to lord it over them on no basis other than skin colour.

And yet, she felt the strain of those promises, even as she recognised their necessity.

To the people of the Copper Isles, she was justice, she was stability, she was sanity, she was constancy, she was fair and clever and she was trustworthy.

To her friends, Dove remained- Dove.

Five years ago, Dove had asked Aly when the spymistress had last slept in her own bed, or words to that effect- Dove could not quite remember.

And now it was Aly, Aly with her triplets and two-year-old Sukhoni, her husband, her family, who stood over Dove as she woke at her desk, dangling Quedanga's keys from her fingers with an uncompromising expression on her face. "You're as bad as the triplets. Never do what they're told," she'd say, and remind Dove that Dove had promised, Dove had promised

_promise promise promise, break my heart with a broken promise..._

_... keep your word, keep your word, never break it, no, no,_

_deeds not words, we don't need your empty promises..._

_break my heart with a broken promise..._

_heart with a broken promise... _

_a broken promise..._

_promise..._

And as Dove looked at Aly, who looked healthy, and tanned with the spring sun, and happy (if a touch angry) she thought of her own reflection, too young, too careworn, too plain.

And she could not bear to tell Aly that she'd made too many promises. She'd aimed for the sky, and a bird had flown over and done something unspeakable to her visions of her country.

Dove was jealous, as well, of the carefree people around her, the girls of her own age, whose worries did not include this year's harvest, the treasury's health, or foreign policy.

But most of all, Dove was tired. The reason she was tired was not complicated; she avoided sleep. The reasons for that were not complicated either. It had a great deal to do with what happened when she slept- Dove's dreams.

Dove's dreams. They held an entire pantheon of terrors for her. The sights, the sounds, and yes, the smells of the bloody coup that put her on the throne, all superimposed with the childish, hoping face of little Elsren.

Five years ago, she had refused to see a healer specialising in ailments of the mind, who could search out, and put a stop to, traumas such as those Dove experienced while riding Kypry, looking down on her streets, the battlefields she had seen before a tentative peace arrived in the Isles, the dead she had known.

At the time, she had said no, and it had seemed sensible. "The people might take it the wrong way! They don't want another mad monarch, and that's what they'll think I am!" she had argued, and eventually, her advisors had given in.

She had been fine, up until a few months ago. Then, something had happened.

_It was the middle of summer, and the city was restless._

The heat was oppressive, worse than normal, and that was very bad. Five-year-old Junim got chronic sunburn, and Sukhoni heatstroke, extremely dangerous for such a little child. Aly muttered imprecations, slathered Ochobai and Ulasu in multiple layers of a cream that protected against the sun, and took the two afflicted children to the healer's.

Dove grinned at Aly's curious mixed Kyprin-Common swearwords, kept to the shade, and played umpteen games of chess with whomsoever felt like taking their queen on.

Finally, in the middle of October, the heat broke. A heavy humidity settled over Rajmuat. Weather mages warned of a great storm- Dove ordered shutters closed and barred in the palace and boats secured in Rajmuat Harbour. No member of any fishing fleet was to leave the harbour. All navy boats were to put in to the nearest port.

The city braced itself for a storm as the temperature dropped rapidly.

Winnamine fell ill within a few hours of the mages' announcement. It was late at night, and many cautioned against Dove going to her, reasoning that Petranne, at least, remained at the sick woman's side.

To which Dove replied that Petranne was not even fourteen and had not the least knowledge of how to treat the fever Winnamine suffered, and that it would be a shame on herself if she did not attend her stepmother in her time of sickness. Dove's habit of guessing correctly which arguments people who attempted to stop her getting her own way was something she often blessed in the deepest, quietest parts of her mind; using rational counter-arguments tailored to squash the objections lent her authority in an instant.

So she hurried to Balitang House as the thick charcoal-grey clouds rolled in, to be greeted by a frantic Petranne, who wasn't quite suffering from hysterics, but wasn't very far off, either.

As Dove reached her stepmother's room, the first raindrops fell. At the palace, Ulasu Cooper-Crow climbed out of bed and walked to the balcony, which had been carefully stripped of all handholds, and held out her hands palms up to the sky. Drops of rain landed on the small hands. Ulasu withdrew them, and looked at her palms. "Storm," she whispered, and closed her shutters clumsily.

Ulasu went to sleep very quickly. But even she heard the first whispers, shrieks, moans and roars of a rising wind that rushed into Rajmuat off the sea, raging around the buildings, tearing branches from trees, smashing ships against the walls of the harbour, filling sails to breaking point, ripping shutters from windows and rattling others.

Lightning snapped- thunder crashed- the clouds kept up a constant, thick, heavy barrage of rain. Queen Dovasary, Dove the cunning, Dove the courageous, Dove the invincible, Dove who was dedicated to her country and her country alone, broke down and became Dove, a thirteen year old girl secretly terrified for her life and those of those she cared for again. The storm was too much like a storm that had happened five years and a couple of months ago.

_It was the middle of summer, and the city was restless._

Dove had had a favourite sibling. His name was Elsren Balitang. He was in the direct line for the luarin throne until he died.

He knew this. Even as a small child, it scared him, and he searched for a source of protection.

Not his mother. He did not want to pour his worries into her ears.

Not Aunt Nuritin. Aunt Nuritin wanted him to be something that did not include night horrors and fears.

Not Sarai. Sarai he bonded with over horses; riding, and racing. Sarai taught him to sit his first horse, but he felt distant from her on other matters.

Not Petranne. Petranne would jeer and jibe, and scorn her brother when he needed it least.

That left Dove.

So he talked to Dove. He told her that he was scared. He told her about the nightmares. He told her that he was scared that Petranne would think he was a wimp. He told her that he felt like one of the little thingies with round tops that Dove prodded into place during her black-and-white-board games- Dove told him the thingies with round tops were called _pawns_, and the game _chess_.

Dove talked to Elsren. She told him that everyone was scared, and it didn't make him any less than anyone else. She told him that she had nightmares sometimes too, but they were safe at Balitang House with Aly and Fesgao and Ulasim to look after them.

After that episode, Dove kept Elsren by her a lot. She read with him and to him. She taught him to play chess and showed him how to shoot. She comforted him when Sarai ran away.

And most importantly, she promised that she would always look after him.

Dove was devastated beyond all imagining when Elsren died. Sarai was gone- Elsren was gone- her days felt empty. _She had failed- failed miserably- her brother- her half-brother- gone- dead- nothing left, left, Elsren left her- no, no, he would not have gone voluntarily_- she thought. _Taken- the Black God, the Black God takes us all in the end, why Elsren? why Elsren? Why her beloved baby brother? _

She answered that question herself.

_I failed- I failed. I did wrong. I could not protect him. I... broke it. My promise. I broke my word and he is dead. Why could I not protect him? Why? Why?_

And _why? why? why?_ Dove, the girl-child Dove keened, late into the night, early into the day, the dawn, the dawn of Elsren's death, the dawn of Winna's sickness, as Dovasary the Queen moved automatically around the sickroom, trying to abate the fever with cool water and silence and clean air, and the furious wind raged around the house, whispered her failings, mocking- mocking- mocking her with its echoes of a storm five years ago.

Eventually, it faltered and failed.

The sun lit the room. The greatest of warriors watching over an archer-queen.

The moon hung in the sky. The most maternal of mothers watching over a struggling adolescent.

Many-coloured sparkles winked in and out of sight around the room. The most mischievious of tricksters watching over a cunning girl.

Dove crossed to the window and pulled the shutters open. Light poured in on her, glittering off the tears she had cried without realising it.

Tears for Elsren, who was dead.

Tears for Winna, who was alive.

Tears of relief, in the knowledge that she was not perfect. If she wasn't, there was no need to strive to be.

Tears of sadness, that she hadn't been able to protect Elsren.

Tears of knowledge, that she would never have been able to. It was out of her power.

_It was not the middle of summer, and the people were at peace._

And at last, the sun rose, and the moon set, and the sparkles vanished.

For then was not now for Dove. Then is not now for any of us.

Dove's problems were not solved. She still had many promises to fulfil.

But she could sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream, a poet had once said; but no longer did Dove's dreams hold any fears for her.


End file.
